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Majority Voting and the Welfare Implications of Tax Avoidance

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  • Christian Traxler

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods)

Abstract

A benchmark result in the political economy of taxation is that majority voting over a linear income tax schedule will result in an ine±ciently high tax rate whenever the median voter has a below average income. The present paper examines the role of tax avoidance for this welfare assessment. We find that the inefficiency in the voting equilibrium is the lower, the higher the average level of tax avoidance in the economy, or equivalently, the lower the median voter's amount of avoidance. The result holds for endogenous avoidance and labor choice and, under certain conditions, for an endogenous enforcement policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Traxler, 2009. "Majority Voting and the Welfare Implications of Tax Avoidance," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2009_22, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2009_22
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    Cited by:

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    2. Richard C. Barnett & Joydeep Bhattacharya & Helle Bunzel, 2014. "Voting For Income-Immiserizing Redistribution In The Meltzer–Richard Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 682-695, April.
    3. Adam, Antonis & Kammas, Pantelis, 2012. "(Tax evasion) power to the people: does "early democratization" increase the size of the informal sector?," MPRA Paper 43343, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. An, Zhiyong, 2013. "An alternative approach to income taxation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 875-878.
    5. Hans Gersbach & Ulrich Schetter & Maik T Schneider, 2019. "Taxation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(620), pages 1731-1781.
    6. Ángel Solano-Garcia, 2017. "Fairness in tax compliance: A political competition model," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(5), pages 1026-1041, October.
    7. Barnett, Richard & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Bunzel, Helle, 2012. "Voting for immiserizing income redistribution in the Meltzer-Richard model," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2012-15, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    8. Marie-Louise Leroux & Dario Maldonado & Pierre Pestieau, 2015. "Compliance, Informality and Contributive Pensions," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-52, CIRANO.
    9. José Durán-Cabré & Alejandro Esteller-Moré & Luca Salvadori, 2015. "Empirical evidence on horizontal competition in tax enforcement," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(5), pages 834-860, October.
    10. Traxler, Christian, 2012. "Majority voting and the welfare implications of tax avoidance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 1-9.
    11. Carlos Bethencourt & Lars Kunze, 2015. "The political economics of redistribution, inequality and tax avoidance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 267-287, June.
    12. Hakan İnal, 2015. "Voting over law enforcement: mission impossible," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 349-360, August.
    13. Zhiyong An, 2015. "A Note on Voting over Taxes with Tax Avoidance," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 71(3), pages 407-414, September.
    14. Alejandro Esteller-Moré & Umberto Galmarini, 2023. "Optimal Tax Administration Responses to Fake Mobility and Underreporting," Working Papers 2023/03, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    15. Yutaro Hatta, 2014. "Inefficiency in fiscal policy: A political economy of the Laffer curve," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 14-36, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    16. Marie-Louise Leroux & Dario Maldonado & Pierre Pestieau, 2015. "Contributive Pensions and Imperfect Tax Compliance: A Political Economy Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 5656, CESifo.
    17. Weinreich, Daniel, 2013. "Fair tax evasion and majority voting over redistributive taxation," MPRA Paper 48919, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax avoidance; welfare analysis; majority voting; median voter equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

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